Riverside Shakespeare Company

The concept of madness and those who suffer from its hold is something that is apparent in both Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear, both plays treat madness in similar ways - it is often not understood by the characters, it is often feminized and there are characters who choose to assume madness for their own specific reasons. Another similarity is that both plays have two central characters that suffer from madness, each has one character whose madness is real and each has a character whose madness

Nobody is capable of changing the past. A person’s mistakes and the pain that they inflict on other people are permanent and irreversible. The potential to repair the damage lies by changing the future, not the past. Many characters in William Shakespeare’s play, King Lear, realize their mistakes by suffering, and attempt to correct them through good deeds. Lear’s experience with poverty helps him recognize his misconception of love and accept Cordelia’s forgiveness. Gloucester’s loss of sight

Although it is never too late to learn, those lessons learned in old age are the most difficult and the most costly. In his play KING LEAR, Shakespeare illustrates that wisdom does not necessarily come with age. The mistakes that Lear and Gloucester make leave them vulnerable to disappointment and suffering at a time in their lives when both should be enjoying peace and contentment. Although both Lear and Gloucester achieve wisdom before they die, they pay a dear price for having lived life blindly

Discussion Write Up Day one of our discussion brought up the catharsis in King Lear (#4). I agreed that with Gloucester’s death there was not so much catharsis as there was sympathy and happiness. As readers, I think we were happier to see Gloucester put out of his misery “Pluck out his poor eyes” (3.7.58) and relieved at the fact that he died “smilingly” (5.3.201). I agreed that we readers were happy about Edgar’s ending since he had so much bad fortune throughout the play he deserved a break,

The Tragedy of King Lear: William Shakespeare, a playwright of the 1600 's, has been well known for writing many plays and poems. His play titled The Tragedy of King Lear is remembered globally and is learned in many schools today. A continuous theme in King Lear is a disguise, which consists of many different forms. There are physical, manipulative, and figurative disguises. In the beginning of the play, characters already fall into this category. In the first act, King Lear is at old age and

Cinderella in a Black Dress Goneril is not one of the evil stepsisters from Cinderella. Her many faces, in fact, stem from the same source and are not as different as one may conceive. The truth lies in one of her lines in Act 1, Scene 1. “There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him [Lear]. Pray you let’s hit together. If our father carry authority with such disposition as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us” (I, i, 331-4). The statement can be viewed as

“When we travel, we often focus on our destination at a cost of other aspects of the journey” is a statement which can be related to almost any journey whether it be physical, imaginative or emotional. King Lear is a text (play), written by William Shakespeare, that relates to the statement, as most of the characters within the play go on their own separate journeys. These journeys result in the severance of many relationships between characters, such as Edgar and Edmund, and affect the aspects of their

The tragedy of King Lear is a remarkable play by Shakespeare a play that emphasizes the idea of power and madness throughout each character in the play. The concepts of accepting power, disowning it and abusing it are strong elements that are demonstrated through the characters. The play is written in iambic pentameter even though this is the case it does not commence until King Lear makes his first appearance adding a subtle significance to Lear. The play begins with Lear relinquishing his authority

Family Dysfunctions in King Lear No two snowflakes are alike. Similarly, every family’s relationship is unique. William Shakespeare’s, King Lear, focuses on the similarities between the two families involved in the plot and subplot. The plot consists of King Lear, who is fooled into believing that his eldest daughters, Goneril and Regan, love him; however, he soon realizes the opposite as Goneril and Regan betray him in hopes of gaining power. Fortunately, Cordelia truly loves her father and stays

that deceive him by professing their love for him. King Lear eventually realizes his mistake of banishing his other daughter, Cordelia, who does not vocalize her love for him. Soon after, he becomes insane from the shock of the betrayal he faces. Shakespeare presents ideas of internalized sexism and exploitation in this play, to show the tendency towards misogyny. He uses the motifs of body and animals to illustrate that women are portrayed as lesser than men because of the stigma of their emotional